Zaha Hadid: “Life is not made in a grid.”
Dame Zaha Hadid is one of the most famous architects currently practising in the world. She was the first female recipient of the Pritzker Prize, which is commonly referred to as the ‘Nobel prize of architecture.’ Her Middle East Centre is due to open at St. Antony’s College on Tuesday 26th Ma
Representation or Tokenism? People of Colour in the UK Arts scene
Amidst the gloom of a typical rainy afternoon in London, a black woman dressed in gaudy yellow, her hair in a stylised afro, smiles into the distance. The woman isn’t actually a woman but a photo of one, printed on an advertisement for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibiti
Amazon Review, Reviewed
In 2010, historian Orlando Figes was revealed to have written reviews of his and his colleagues’ work under various pseudonyms. He described a book by Robert Service as “curiously dull” and “hard to follow”, while characterising his own prose as “beautifully written … [it] leave
How to Talk to Ghosts
The road narrows between two hedgerows and, as the cab slows, a red-brick manor house comes into view. I have arrived at Arthur Findlay College, the UK’s premier educational institution for psychic mediums, to attend the college’s annual Open Week. I am met at reception by Minister Steven Upton
Vorticism: The Fascist Art Movement?
As the title of its manifesto Blast! might suggest, Vorticism was a movement born out of opposition. Wyndham Lewis formed Vorticism at his workshop, the aptly named Rebel Art Centre, following a feud with Roger Fry and his Omega Workshop. Ezra Pound, who named and supported Vorticism, became involve
The Aesthetics of Nostalgia
A man in a voluminous fur coat riding a child’s scooter rolls towards the camera in slow motion. Behind him, a crowd of people decked out in hipster kitsch follow on bicycles, rollerblades, and rolling office chairs. This is the opening shot of the music video for ‘Thrift Shop’, Macklemore &am
E is for England
‘Englishness’ is a term that has grown as flat as our beer, and as meaningless as our national anthem.‘Englishness’ is something to be rolled out every four years for the World Cup in order to sell Mars Bars and Gillette Razors. It has been appropriated by the sort of people that think the p
Great British Walks: Didcot Power Station
If you have every travelled via the South-West Trains service from Oxford to Reading, you will, most likely, recall seeing the three cooling towers of Didcot power station rising out of the landscape, roughly fifteen minutes into the journey. Clumped together among a shoal of smaller administrative
Literary Graves
“You know what was written on Keats’ grave? ‘Here lies one whose fame was writ in water.’” Bob Dylan mulls this over. “Where’s he buried?” Dylan is with Allen Ginsberg, visiting Jack Kerouac’s grave in Massachusetts. Ginsberg asks what graves the singer has seen. A pause. “Victor